Nokia has made several Nseries device which had really shaken the market like the N73, N70 and of course the N95. N95 has been titled as one of the best phones Nokia has ever made. And we all agree with that. It’s true that since then we havent seen such a groundbreaking device then until Nokia released the N97. One of the highly anticipated device has been in the market for a while now. The N97 has bought for the first time a touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard combo for the first time in the Nokia stream of phones.

If that’s not just enough for you, then see if a Carl Zeiss 5MP camera with 30fps video recording or a life time NAVIGATION with voice for both Walk and Drive or a massive 32GB internal storage with extra room for a 16gb micro sd card can please you. These are just the highlights. Obviously, you will also see A-GPS, WLAN, BT, 3.5″ nHD screen and 3G HSDPA connectivity. There is nothing more you can ask on this device’s hardware.

And yeah, for the software side, N97 is powered with Symbian S60V5 OS. The s60v5 version is specifically designed for touchscreen phones and yeah Symbian unlike the iPhone OS is a multitasking beast. If you have already used symbian, then you will not find much differences with this version of OS except for larger buttons and slight tweaks. But on the N97 you will see some more changes which you might not see on any other S60v5 phones like the Widget HomeScreen. N97 is capable of having widgets on the homescreen which updates itself automatically to keep you in sync with the web. Widgets include those for mail, stocks, weather, facebook, twitter and more. You can see them all at one place.

All you need is wifi or data connection and the phone does the rest. You may also notice that, apart from the internet widgets you also have access to other widgets which lets you access the clock, calendar, change profile, access four main apps via shortcuts or even your four main contacts with full conversation history. Isn’t that amazing to do all this without even having to jump on to the menu ??? And yeah, if you wanna break from all these widgets with numbers and stuff, you can easily switch to basic homescreen which just shows you clock, calendar and the lovely wallpaper you have. Check out the demo below.

From the HomeScreen, you can get on to the menu through the beautifully placed, slightly tilted silver menu button(image below). The menu icons looks the same as other s60 phones. You also have the option here to rearrange the menu icons so that you can have your frequently used apps’ icon on top which will save you some time scrolling down.

Talking about scrolling, the N97 comes with fully integrated Kinetic Scrolling(FW v2.0 or higher). If this word is new to you, then you might wanna check out the video below. Some call this flick scrolling while some call it iPhone like scrolling. What makes this scrolling special is that it helps you to scroll up and down with just the flick of a finger for which earlier you had to drag the tiny slider on the right side of the menu. Iam sure it was a nightmare for those with fat fingers.

Calling and texting are simple as anything. Just tap on the dialer button on the homescreen, enter your number and Whoa ! Alternatively, you can choose a contact from contacts menu on the homescreen. However, one drawback we’ve seen is that the dialer pad does not have alphabets on it which can be little trouble if you wanna dial say 1800-400-SACHU

As mentioned earlier, since symbian OS can multitask, you can access other apps on your phone while in a call. You can send sms, email, read tweets or continue browsing mymobilescoop.com In addition, you can conference call, hold or mute which are pretty much the basic stuffs.

Texting and MMS are also just as easy. You just have to enter the messaging menu and tap on write message. If you are a power texter, you can have homescreen shortcut which on tapping opens you the write message page directly. This is very handy when you are extremely busy.

This is the first menu that welcomes you when you tap on the messaging app. The first option is to write a message in text format. The writing page also contains the option to add media contents which when added converts the message to a multimedia text message. Inbox being the second in row has all your incoming messages. The messaging app has an email client built in. But we are not going to use it as it doesn’t support HTML. After all why should we use it when we have the popular Nokia Messaging app which we shall cover later. You can also view your sent messages and also you can keep track of messages you have sent if you are in a strict messaging plan. One great is that the ability to receive delivery reports. For Nokia users, its not great thing. But do you know iPhone doesn’t support it yet officially. The QWERTY keyboard can keep up with your typing speeds and is very easy to type. It’s very handy as typing on the touchscreen wont work all the time in all situations. So if you are one of those who sends large emails and texts this is the right device for you.

Tired of reading ?? Take a break and enjoy the video below:

Nseries device are famous for their multimedia capabilities and N97 is no exception. N97 performs way higher than user expectations. The gorgeous nHD 3.5″ display, the 32GB onboard memory, 5MP Camera, powerful speakers all add to the experience. Its almost a computer and you never have to delete any item. If you still find that space isn’t enough for you, don’t forget the additional 16GB card support which will bring up the total storage on the device upto a whopping 48GB.

Flipping through photos, music and videos are just a breeze. Almost all types of audio and images are supported on the device. You can also watch unlimited youtube videos through the dedicated client(Requires data connection). But we didn’t like about the gallery is browsing through them. Kinetic scrolling does help navigate easily, but the photos and videos are all mixed up. Though you have an option to sort it out, we would like the menu for it on the main page of gallery directly rather than going to options everytime. However you will notice some wisely placed touch buttons for sending, editing or even trashing.

Music player is really awesome. It really makes use of the 3.5″ display. All your songs just look as sweet as they sound with that gorgeous album art. And yeah, you can manually set it too which means it could be your picture under Britney’s song
The UI is normal s60 looking but redesigned for touch access. You can also have a small music widget on Home Screen so that you can see which track is being played and a tap on it will take you to the Music Player.

Camera is another stunning feature of the N97. And yeah, its one of the 5mp camera phones I have tested. Videos also look great. But both fails to deliver high quality images or videos in low light. Thanks to the LED flash in the phone:-P There are a variety of option the camera gives you before you can start snapping/recording.

Web Browsing is a great experience on the N97. The big screen does really add to the browsing experience. One great feature of the browser is that it auto hides the address bar, navigation and the status bar when a page completes loading so that u can simply start panning or zooming around the page. The browser also supports flash unlike many other great browsers out there. You can have personalized bookmarks, username/password storage etc are all out of the box. Pages loaded faster and looked stunning. The always accessible Zoom button is a blessing. But sometimes zooming with it is too difficult.

is another awesome feature. Again the big 3.5″ display makes it a great device for navigation. So you can easily mount them in your car easily and you can intermittently look at the phone screen and road while driving. As mentioned, since its a big screen you dont have to strain yourself on to the screen while driving to know where you are which might cause some accidents. Recently, Ovi announced free Voice guided Navigation to make navigation easier and fun. The following services are provided by Ovi.

Free Drive navigation
Free Walk navigation
Free maps and map updates
Free Events guides
Free Lonely Planet guides
Free Michelin guides

Applications are another blessing to this phone. To improve your touchscreen experience, developers have created plenty of fun, entertainment, utility apps etc. Not to mention Gravity for twitter, Nimbuzz etc are one of the best available. Sounds new? Don’t worry we have reviews coming up on them. Ovi store has almost all kinds of apps. So you will never walk out of the store without a new app in phone. Downloading apps are just as easy as tapping download button. The store client will do the rest. It will automatically download and install it to the phone. At the same time you can go about browsing another apps.

The only one question that arise in your mind would be, despite all these features, does the phone stay up all day long without requiring you to search for a charging outlet ?? Well, the answer is yes. There are many phones out there with plenty of features. But none of them has a battery that can keep up with all those features which is a great let down. Nokia has wisely placed a good battery to cater all your needs. So you can freely tweet, browse, listen to music or navigate without too much worry on the battery. Thanks Nokia ! Thumbs up for that because my battery life is very questionable on my iPhone 3GS .

Nokia phones are a worthy investment these days. Great free services from Ovi for navigation, sharing, other softwares specifically designed by Nokia like Nokia Messaging, Point and Find, and many others makes it worth every penny. After all I’ve got to agree with the call quality on Nokia phones. Many companies have lost their focus these days. The primary use of a phone is to make calls and most phones today have call quality issues(dropped calls) even though they have many other features. But what good is a phone if it can’t make a proper call ??

The Bottom Line: N97 is a great multimedia/multitasking device. If you are one of those who like to stay connected 24/7 and share everything online then N97 has been designed just for you. This may not be the perfect device for the tech geeks as the phone is slightly slow when running large amount of apps. But this won’t be a problem to normal users as they may not have so many apps running at once.
The phone is really solid and feels great in your hands. And the sexy form factor will get all eyes on you(ok on your phone !) wherever you go

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